


Finding Futures

by Fictionaster



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Culture - Iain M. Banks
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Misgendering, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-29 01:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 9,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21401755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictionaster/pseuds/Fictionaster
Summary: The Federation, represented by the Enterprise-D, encounters a General Systems Vehicle. The Contact section is ready for them.To be updated serially.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 85





	1. Chapter 1

It gave no physical sensation, going to warp, that was scientifically established, but after years of deep awareness, he felt like it did. The physics of twisting space and pushing the Enterprise along its scrunched skein was so second-nature, something he had plotted out in his head in normal and abnormal circumstances so many times, he imagined himself folding as he heard the telltale noises and saw the flashing lights, and felt this folding in his gut. Engineers called it phantom-warp syndrome.

“Engine status?”

“The modifications we made to sustain warp through this sector are working, Captain. The fractal harmonizers are at 95% of normal efficiency after 12 hours of Warp 8.”

“Well done, Mister La Forge. Mister Data, are we on schedule?”

“Yes, Captain. We will enter scanning range of our survey region in approximately 25 minutes.”

“Are we at the Beta Quadrant at this moment?”

“No, sir, but we are at… _this_ moment.”

Riker looked up from his console. “Data, was that a joke?”

“In a sense, sir. I found a treatise on ‘deliberately weak workplace humor’ and was attempting to put it into practice. Did I succeed?”

Picard looked at Riker for a response. 

“...I think so? I’m not entirely sure that is… uh, a tradition meriting cultivation.”

“Thank you, sir, I will consider that. The treatise was more descriptive than prescriptive in its approach. Preparing scanners for full sweep.”

“I’ll be in my ready room; please alert me to anything out of the ordinary, and when we are five minutes from the first sweep. Number One, you have the bridge.” Picard rose and left.

“Did the quality of my joke drive him away, sir?”

“No, Data, I… oh. Is that the ‘cultural practice’ again?”

“Yes, sir. I will cease now.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

Under his breath, Riker muttered: “Sometimes wish _I_ could run to the ready room.”


	2. Chapter 2

Uleleyn-Tanadantsa Seloy Am Reyelfin dam Igaono was resting on the bottom of the swimming pool, looking up at the stars, when the call came. Mindful of the sonic qualities of water, it came by neural lace.

“Am? This is _Parts_ prime.”

Am took a breath and bubbled in response. “Honored. Are they here?”

“They are just coming in range, and will not detect us for some time. If you wish to fully monitor their progress, now would be a good time to start.”

“Give me, um… half an hour’s notice before they know anything, I think. No sense panopticking at this level.”

“Understood.” The lace connection clicked off. Am bundled up and pushed off the bottom, breaching the surface in a splash. The pool was uncrowded, only a few people and floating surfaces within a hundred meters, likely because of the elected cooler weather for the day, but the surrounding dry spaces had more groups, singles, and an impromptu lawn-bowl game, stretching off into the horizon. The GSV _Mushy Parts_ had artfully positioned itself where a small asteroid would occupy a full ten degrees of the black starry sky; it provided a change from the usual inky expanse over these ten square kilometers of greenspace.

While strolling to a transit hatch, Am checked the standings in the contest to name the asteroid. The favorite was still _Oh Hello_, a reference to a recent play. They quixotically added a new entrant: _New Friend_.


	3. Chapter 3

Counselor Troi was in command on the bridge as the Enterprise continued scans through the graveyard shift. They had configured the scan schedule so that more habitable systems and other areas of interest were primarily coming up during daytime, when the captain would be there. But there was a large area to cover, so Troi still expected some finds of interest.

She hardly had time to register the beeps from Ensign Gates’s comm console with a mental “this is something!” before Gates reported. “I’m picking up something, sir. It appears to be an old-style radio transmission in the 100-megahertz band, coming from… the system’s asteroid belt.”

“Helm, change our orbit to get a better look.” She consulted her own console for dimensions of the current system, tentatively labeled AE-19. “Let’s make it about 5 AU from the system’s primary star, maintain angular position from disc. Lieutenant Moa, your analysis? I didn’t think this system was a very hospitable one.”

“Yes, sir, a binary system of one class-K orange dwarf and one white dwarf. No planets of significant size. Even its asteroid belt is low in useful elements, so not likely to draw civilizations from elsewhere.”

“Can you translate the radio signal?”

“One second… no, sir. It was too brief and low-resolution to get any fix for a translation. And, I should have said, it stopped just now. Length of broadcast… thirty seconds.”

“Can we hear it? And use our outrigger probes to triangulate the source? Ensign Gates, please start scanning the entire asteroid belt at higher resolution.”

The transmission played what sounded like music - something horn- and percussion-based. She could see why it was untranslatable so far: two overlapping voices, one crooning, the other chattering, perhaps talking over a recording, both faint and tinny. Then the chattering one sounded like it was interrupted mid-sentence, said a few more words, and clicked off.

“Sir, we have reached the new monitoring position. Scans are inconclusive so far,” said Gates.

“I have triangulated to a volume with radius of a thousand kilometers,” said Moa. “But the scan shows… nothing in that area. It might be an old probe, sir, set to transmit samples of its originating civilization. If so it would be too small for us to see yet.”

“Visual display of the area. Keep scanning.”

Troi knew her use of viewscreen was more for the feeling of physical, personal involvement than anything else in this case, the sensors far more up to the task. Or so she thought until the picture came up. 

“I… think the sensors missed something, Lieutenant.” 

Now Gates was staring too, but the science officer seemed absorbed in his console tasks. “Lieutenant Moa—everyone—_look_!”

They took in the image in silence, marred only by a few console chirps and the whisper-quiet ventilation.

“Troi to Captain Picard.”

“Yes, Counselor.” The response coming back soon enough Jean-Luc must not have been asleep.

“Captain, I think you’re going to want to see this...”


	4. Chapter 4

“Yes, right -- no, that’s too far. Another half a meter to the left, please? And, yes, forward just five centimeters. You see?-- I think it’s more inviting this way.”

The drone withdrew its fields and let the beanbag chair fall a hairsbreadth to the floor. “If you say so, Am. Interior design is not my forte.”

“We’ll call the staging done then.” The space they had just finished curating was relatively humble, dotted with sofas, talk-around-tables, art objects, the usual assortment of snacks and drugs, as well as a few screens mimicking windows to the void of space. But behind a courtesy curtain it all connected to a honeycomb of rooms and corridors, some smaller, some larger, gradually merging into fully public halls. 

Am extended their perception through nonce floating eyes to the whole of the party-orium. The word had gone out: soon the space would be filling up. Indeed, a few characters were already trickling in around the edges. Early-comers, a rarity in the Culture, mildly embarrassing, but understandable in this case. If anyone asked, Am thought, these people would probably make like they were just exploring this corner of the _Mushy Parts_.

Am positioned themself at one of the screens and patted all around their hairdo and outfit, the latter a red and orange jumpsuit with needlepoint lace accents, calling back to their long-ago gymnastics days while also inspired by their incipient guests' uniforms. All was in place; nothing was left to put off the main event.

They clicked into the local Contact channel, which had fallen silent in anticipation, into broadcast mode. 

“All right, everyone. Come around, have fun, don’t be dicks or crowd the guests, be mindful of the privacy settings. I might be used to this level of spotlight, but most of you aren’t. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want future historians to see you doing!”

“That doesn’t rule much out for you,” said the drone, Xenrin-Ratsirma.

“I’m not dispensing advice to myself. _Parts_, please get them up on screen? “Hail” them, like they call it?"

The screen showed a progress wedge whose arc slowly grew. At the moment it became a full circle, it blinked into a view of the spartan, cream-colored starship bridge. Standing front and center was Captain Jean-Luc Picard.


	5. Chapter 5

“This is Jean-Luc Picard of the starship _Enterprise_, bringing greetings from the United Federation of Planets. We come in peace on a mission of exploration and exchange.”

“Greetings to you, Captain! I am Uleleyn-Tanadantsa Seloy Am Reyelfin dam Igaono; but you can just call me ‘Am’. We too consider ourselves a peaceful and knowledge-loving civilization, so we have been looking forward to this meeting.”

“I am delighted to hear it, Am. I must admit we had some trepidation when your vessel did not show up in our scans, but then saw it on the standard visual spectrum so assume there was no ill intent behind it. We were wondering if our visual estimations were accurate as to the, er, dimensions of your vessel? Is it really 150 kilometers long?”

“Yes, that invisibility was a little disconcerting when I realized it. An emergent effect when our millennia-old advances interact with your technology, we almost forgot it would be a thing. Your visual estimations are quite correct, Captain. Past a certain point of technology ships actually get more efficient with size, but we also just like it this way. I was born on this ship, the General Systems Vehicle _Mushy Parts_, and spent over half my adult life here; we’re rather proud of it. Would you like a tour? We have much to discuss.”

“Thank you, we would be honored. Is a delegation of six acceptable?”

“Six, sixty - come on over! We’re not pressed for space. I’m sending the transport coordinates. You may find it simpler in the long run to dock your whole ship, but no pressure, you know, this is just the first date.” They chuckled briefly.

Worf started. “Sir, intruder alert in transport bay 2. Nine humanoids. There is also… a transport of some kind. I do not know how we missed it approaching or entering.”

“Shields up. Seal off the area and dispatch security. Am, what is the meaning of this?”

Am shut their eyes for a few seconds, then reopened them, looking annoyed. “I’m very sorry, Captain. They mean no harm, just enthusiasts who aren’t very good at boundaries. If you connect me to the transport bay, I’ll persuade them to get lost.”

“Hold transmission.” Picard looked at Troi expectantly.

“He seems to be telling the truth, Captain. I am also now sensing the intruders, and I detect no hostility there either.”

“They might be dangerous without being emotionally hostile, Captain,” suggested Riker. “Like the Borg.”

“Let’s give him the opportunity to make good on his word,” said Picard. “Connect Am to the transport bay, and split-screen so we monitor the exchange. Remind the security team not to draw their arms unless they have to.”

Ensign Gates touched the appropriate panels, and Am appeared alongside a view from a communications panel inside the bay, showing only about half its expanse. Several humanoids of motley dress were wandering about it in different directions, some murmuring to themselves. A few had fist-sized machines hovering a few feet from their shoulders; one wore an electronically flickering monocle. There was a long and sleek vessel, more melted-looking than Federation craft but clearly the product of convergent technological evolution, and splashed in purple, yellow, pink, and white, with markings in some angular script.

“Fourmes!” barked Am. “Is that you? Come over and talk to me!”

The monocled one, who wore a fuzzy scarf and wide-V shirt revealing a muscular chest, turned his head and approached the panel. At the same time, the door hissed and the security team walked in, their backs to the camera.

“Hello, Am,” said the one apparently called Fourmes. “This is quaint. What’s the urgency?”

“Security, please stay where you are!”

“I’m not Security. You seem a little mixed up, chum. What’s your name? We’ll sort this out, don’t worry.”

“You aren’t authorized to board—”

Am talked over the lieutenant. “Fourmes, you’re being obtuse on multiple levels. You know you’re not invited to be on the ship and there are sensitivities. Contact sent out a precis to members of all the relevant forums, you must have it.” | “We’re off the air, Gates?” Riker asked quietly. She nodded and he tapped his combadge. “Riker, silent to Lieutenant Dabaransi. Hold position and don’t escalate as long as they don’t leave the transport bay. Let them talk it out.”  
---|---  
  
“I subscribe to a lot, I probably skimmed it. Anyway, why do you think you lot have a monopoly on calling on visitors? The Good Vibes Crew has more followers than you, we’re probably doing a sight more for inter-civ education and amity than whatever you have planned.” 

“We’ve both got a bigger audience today, Fourmes. This is all streaming from me to Contact Gen-Chat. I can say with some confidence that your amusing slip-ups are less amusing to the eyes on us than to your usual fans, and that will have some social consequences. Please come back to the _Parts_.” Am’s voice somehow increased several notches in volume without any change in tone. “_Now._”

Fourmes snorted, then waved desultorily to his company, who suddenly moved in a much more coordinated way. They filed back into their craft - joined, now newly visible on screen, by a larger, also hovering, round machine about a meter in diameter. A door irised closed, and the craft rose and moved out of sight.

“Captain,” said Worf, “the transport bay doors are opening without instruction.”

“Let them go, Lieutenant Commander. But bring teams to sweep the transport bay, in case this was a ruse to leave something behind. Now connect us back to Am; whatever else just happened, he has some explaining to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is Banks canon that the Culture holds a huge variety of subcultures, often maintained online, so some of them must resemble obnoxious YouTube content producers.
> 
> Interested in feedback specifically on whether my use of a table to indicate simultaneous action/dialog was comprehensible.


	6. Chapter 6

The away team’s shuttlecraft seemed to inch toward the GSV as it grew in the viewport.

"It’s incredible," said Troi. "Their technology seems millennia ahead of ours, but they seem quite… humanistic in outlook. Most times the Federation has encountered a similarly advanced species, we have had to contend with a wide gap in culture and mindset, preventing much useful exchange. It’s exciting to think what might come of this contact."

Picard: "That may be, Counselor. I would urge all of you to be on your guard during this encounter. We are inferring a great deal from the gargantuan dimensions of the ship, which are themselves not yet fully confirmed. This apology from this Am character seemed sincere enough to take him up on his invitation, but it offered little more clarity on their outlook."

"Captain, is it not protocol to approach first contact with a charitable and friendly mindset, to avoid the reactive cycle of misunderstandings, defensiveness, and hostility?"

"Indeed, Data, but there are no hard-and-fast rules, and missing key facts has frequently hampered our first contacts. Try to exercise a… creative caution. Consider novel explanations, and what sorts of details may be simplified away."

"I for one hope to be too busy exchanging medical knowledge to be playing shadow-games," said Doctor Crusher.

Crammed into auxiliary drop seats further back were Senior Chief Petty Officer T’Ksanr and Lieutenant Suzzann Einaudi. The lieutenant, the ship’s highest-ranked xenoanthropologist and contact specialist, was poring through a handful of padds. A few times she tried to speak up, but failed to find an opening through the officers’ conversation.

"Lieutenant Einaudi," observed the Chief quietly, "if you are attempting to voice mission-pertinent information, you should do so."

The lieutenant whispered. "This is Jean-Luc Picard! I’m having emotional difficulty cutting in. Couldn't you clear your throat or something?"

"I have no need to clear my throat, but if it assists you with your minor disability, I will announce your intent." Louder: "Captain, I believe the Lieutenant needs to speak for the sake of the mission, but is hesitating to interrupt."

Suzzann glared at the Vulcan, then cleared her face as heads swivelled to her. "Excuse me, Captain, but it is contact protocol to document meetings as soon as possible so as not to lose valuable qualitative information. I have a transcript of our prior transmissions, if you could just annotate your impressions and decisions alongside?" She put one padd under her arm, stood and held two others out to the Captain and Counselor at once. "Counselor, you also, well, you know. And anyone else who was on the bridge, if you have anything to add."

Picard glanced sideways. "Worf, would you like to join me in filling out paperwork?" At Worf’s expected silence, he half-smiled with a glint. "Thank you, Lieutenant." 

"I’m sorry, Captain, I know it’s tedious, but the Science Council will want as much data as possible, and it is a large part of how I will be evaluated on this mission."

"No apology necessary, Lieutenant, we are here on behalf of the Federation, and this is our duty as much as yours..." Picard turned back to the console on which he placed the padd, scrolled a few centimeters, and began dictating subvocally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope to approximate the dramatic arc-style of TNG's episodes, _mutatis mutandis_ for written fiction, but I also want the representatives of both the Federation and the Culture to be their best selves - so no inexplicable jumping to conclusions to juice up drama. I'm having Picard articulate the principles of strategic caution and creativity I think the Federation, as idealized, ought reasonably to approach first contacts with.


	7. Chapter 7

On the Mushy Parts, Am had vanished the barriers to the primary party space. For those newsmongers and inveterate earlycomers, there was a set of strategic distractions: affiliated spaces offering sims of life in the Federation, information only newly available from Contact but not particularly sensitive - and only experienceable in a way that took up significant chunks of their time, allowing more interesting interactions to be set up.

Amusingly, a small queue had formed around one of the sim-spaces. Well, if people were here for archaicisms, they were getting them.

Xenrin-Ratsirma pushed a side table a minute distance, apparently having noticed a late asymmetry.

"Lentch!" Am waved over their friend who had just come in. "Over here! You'd be a brilliant addition to our greetings contingent."

Lentch took a fistful of canapes from a floating tray and put a few in a side pocket of her capacious vest before starting in on the others. "I don't like talking to new people, Am. I'm just here 'cause you asked me. Isn't this all being streamed? Don't like that either."

"You know it is, Lentch. And I asked you here for counterbalance the usual bunch. You're part of the rich tapestry of the Culture, and I think you'll like it."

Lentch let her gaze wander.

"How about if you talk to two of the Federation guests, I'll owe you a favor?"

"Two favors."

"One and a half?"

"Done."

Xenrin-Ratsirma flashed an amused cerise. "What exactly is a half a favor?"

"Like, a small one," said Lentch. 

Am: "We know it when we see it."

As they spoke, enough attendees filtered in for it to feel like a proper soirée - a bit faster than normal, cued by the sight of Am's first interaction with someone non-Contact. Now, Am looked less like an officiant and more like someone you might miss out on conversation with. Am was familiar with this process.

The Mushy Parts spoke into Am's ear. "Their shuttle is docking."

"It's time!" Prompted by an expansive directional double-handed motion from Am, Xenrin-Ratsirma and Lentch flanked them striding or floating into the next room, where a docking area had been purpose-built. 

Multiply-redundant field structures protected what would ordinarily be an engineering no-no, a vast inverse-pyramidal fissure in the GSV's side. The fissure's innermost "apex" was a single airlock accommodating the Federation shuttle to a precise tolerance. A celebrated designer had consulted the Parts on its shape and coloring, incorporating some of the cream plating so beloved of Federation shipbuilders, interspersing gold and magenta patches and Marain inscriptions, but leaving in enough, it was hoped, of the aesthetic sensibilities of the naval newcomers as not to jar them upon entrance. 

Past the airlock, the craft shortly found itself parked in another party anteroom, big enough that its bulk would not be incongruous, but welcoming enough, with more gold and magenta tapestries hung around. A carpeted platform raised itself up to the lip of the shuttle's entrance for step-free access. 

The away team stepped out, blinking, and saw the Culture trio a few meters away. They saw the platform's downward ramp and quickly got the message from teh design, lining themselves up abreast and opposite. 

"Welcome to the Culture, Federation friends!" said Am. "As I said, I am Uleleyn-Tanadantsa Seloy Am Reyelfin dam Igaono, president of the commons of this ship, but more importantly, an operative of our Contact section, as is my associate, Xenrin-Ratsirma - the closest thing to diplomats you'll find. This is Rochai-Wejelfsa Eulepo Lentch Ganzalva a' Kwi, emphasis on Lentch, our friend who was kind enough to turn up."

Picard reciprocally introduced his team. 

"It's a pleasure to meet you all. I could do the obligatory tour of our little world, but we thought it would be better to show you something of the actual people it comprises. This" - they gesturally unwrapped a hologram of the party space in midair - "is a gathering in your honor. Anyone aboard has been invited to come, a vast panoply of friends-in-waiting." 

"I thank you, President Am. Had we known this to be a social occasion, we would have made a more fitting presentation of ourselves."

"Oh, I'm sure you would have decked out splendidly," said Am, "but the Culture is the apex of informality - no prefixing of my title needed, incidentally - so we'd far prefer to take you as you are. Come, come through!" 

With a practiced peripheral vision, the captain caught the positive vibe off of counselor Troi, smiled, and proceeded forward.


	8. Chapter 8

Am caught Picard on a slant heading into the central party room, and guided him away from the rest of the team to an alcove designed for two to talk comfortably, and thirds to feel obtrusive. They could both still see most of the rest of the team as it filtered out.

"Captain," said Am, "I know I said no hoary old tour, but I have the impression you won't be comfortable tonight without a basic synopsis of our civilization, at least from a technological point of view. May I give you a two-minute version?"

"I would be delighted," said Picard.

"Excellent." Am gestured once again and a 2D image sequence started up on the opposite wall, the light manipulated to point only to Picard's eyes, although the stream cameras would pick it up.

"We of the Culture have largely eschewed living on planets in favor of artificial structures, some of them ships like this one. The _Mushy Parts_ is one of the larger ones, at 150km across and 4.2 billion independent sapients at the last census. The majority of us live on habitats, like these Plates"—an image of a free-floating continent, slowly moving in space to eclipse its orbited star—"stationary within systems."

"We have unlimited energy; perfect medicine; fine manipulation of the physical universe down to the lowest levels; and almost all the knowledge and resources that make up our civilization are available on any terms to any member. We have essentially arrived at the apex of the technological ladder as far as it supports sapient existence, although there are always some cosmic mysteries yet to be solved, and there are civilizations of equivalent technology we coexist with."

"Am I to presume," said Picard, "that you have equally formidable defenses against other such civilizations that might wish you harm?"

"I hoped we might avoid that at first," said Am, "but yes, we might as well speak plainly on it. You saw how effortlessly a group of amateurs of below-normal socialization penetrated your shields and security. Fields, effectors, gridfire—I could go into weapon-nerd detail, but the ordnance this ship carries as a matter of course could overpower the entire Federation. I assure you, though, you have nothing to fear from us. We have only ever fought one true war, and the decision to undertake it was a solemn and wrenching one that almost tore our society apart."

Picard stood silent for several seconds.

"I feel—I am not sure what to feel, Am. I appreciate that you are striving to convey no overt threat, but the facts you are presenting me with are inherently disturbing. I suppose… I suppose a more salient question is, how do you govern yourselves and put into practice the principles that we seem to share? Who commands this ship's firepower? Is it you, the President?"

"To your last question, no, Captain, I couldn't order that, no one could. My position is elective but frankly ceremonial, partly for purposes like this. To your larger question of how we govern ourselves, I'm afraid there's no answer so simple. We practice radical autonomy; no laws, no legal obligation on any of us beyond what conscience directs. All our organizations, like my Contact section, are voluntary associations. Ships themselves are sentient and members of our society. We talk and discuss and act by consensus; some are more respected and heeded than others, but nobody is in command. We voted on the war I mentioned before, more than once, but whether to hold votes is a consensus matter too."

"How can such a system function for a civilization at a scale such as yours?"

"Time will tell, I suppose! It's functioned so far—but we've been around in more or less our current configuration for an eye-blink on the galactic timeline. Only five thousand years or so."

"What recourse has anyone if they disagree with a consensus decision?"

"They can leave—and that's a true option, not a euphemism for 'fuck-off.' Billions have left the Culture protesting decisions, the war being the biggest, but there are all manner of pacifist, Eccentric, or otherwise loosely-aligned habitats and ships that will take in anyone from the Culture proper. We don't have borders or citizenship, just a spectrum ranging from closely similar to very different. Hence the name. We're more a tendency than a federation."

"You mentioned being part of a Contact section. What does that do?"

"Everything to do with the greater galaxy. Reception of visitors like yourselves. Exploration. And so forth."

"Everything—including war?"

"We have handled that in the past, yes."

"Well, thank you for this summary. I assure you the Federation is as interested in peaceful relations with you as you are with it. You seem like a man of honor and candor. Shall we continue speaking on these matters over the next few days, as we get to know each other, and conduct cultural and technological exchange?"

"That's a perfect suggestion, Captain. We both have a lot to acclimate to and the momentous parts can wait." Am pumped their fists and shook around a bit. "Phew! What a long, serious talk. Now we can get more frivolous." They led Picard out of the alcove to a table laden in bowls. "And me almost completely straight, who'd have thought. Here, would you like some food, or some drugs? This is _revel_, good for unwinding, quite mild I assure you." They picked up the steaming drug-bowl and extended it to Picard.

He blinked. "Er, no, thank you. The rest of these are food, are they not?"

"Suit yourself." Am took a deep sniff. "Yes, no drugs in them, I told the servitors not to cross the streams. Tuck in and tell me something about yourself, Captain. You must have some hobbies outside work on that very humane ship of yours; what do you do for fun?"

Picard spoke slowly as his attention was divided putting one of everything on a small plate. "Oh, a few things. I pursue theatre, acting out dramas on stage, a centuries-old human art form—on an amateur basis of course. I find there is something similar among many of the species I'm fortunate to come across; do you have it?"

"Oh, yes, how superb, I'm a performer myself! It's a little different for me, not scripted, but still, we should put on something together! Do you mean in person, for broadcast, interactively…?"

"In person, classically. We do have interactive dramas, but those are not so much for spectators. There are some scenes from _Henry V_ you might find illuminating of the human experience."

"Well, we're all humans after all, aren't we? Two arms, two legs, an endoskeleton. Convergent evolution's a rum thing. Send me some selections. Oh, by the way, there's something I should correct you on—my native tongue doesn't make all these distinctions—but I'm gender-nonbinary, so I'd prefer 'person' to 'man', and 'they' to 'he' or 'she' when you're using your pronouns."

"I do apologize, Am."


	9. Chapter 9

"Xenrin-Ratsirma," Data said as they dispersed across the party, "am I right in surmising you are an artificial sapient life-form like myself?"

"You are!" replied Xenrin-Ratsirma. "And an independent one, not a remote, assuming that's your meaning. I hadn't known the Federation was open to such—the precis said you had an, er, inclination toward the organic and unmodified."

"It is true that I am, at present, the only citizen of the Federation or Starfleet officer who is an artificial life-form. I am an android, with a positronic brain and neural net."

"You have full rights, then?"

"Yes, that was adjudicated several years ago."

"You are the only artificial citizen—in the sense that there are others not considered people, or that you are the only one of your kind?"

"The latter. My creator died, and his technique has not proved replicable. I did try to make a revised version of myself, a daughter, but she suffered a technological failure and died. May I ask the nature of your construction?"

"We call ourselves drones, and we make up perhaps ten percent of Culture citizens. Our intellect varies but ranges from 1.5 to 3.0 of pan-human standard, with advantages in recall, logic, and strategy. We have been around for about as long as the Culture itself, and have changed forms and functions over time as part of social shifts and fashions, but we don't change quite as rapidly as the organics do, as we prefer to live longer."

"Is your physical construction the norm? Why do you not have an appearance more like those of the organic members of society?"

"We vary a great deal, but we do usually favor field manipulation"—the drone picked up an empty wineglass nearby as demonstration, smartly rotating it 360 degrees before returning it—"over physical limbs, and aura colors over faces as emotional indicators. As to why—it's been endlessly debated and refined, as most cultural constructions are, but the simplest summary is that we believe form should reflect basic physical nature, and our nature is that of machines rather than organically evolved life-forms. So we present as lumps of metal or composite like myself, and expect society to accept us in that form. But there are exceptions to every rule: you'll find drones in human bodies, hybrids, and all sorts of configurations; even, though I personally find this a little revolting, human brains in drone bodies. _Very_ rare, that last."

"You possess emotions, then?"

"I do! At our level of tech development, it's simply a matter of programming. Here, I prepared a basic glossary so you can read our aura colors." Xenrin-Ratsirma made a wireless data transmission formatted for Data to receive easily, a small chunk of plaintext. "Do you reject emotions as illogical or limiting or something like that?"

"I do not reject them; I long to have them, to better learn what it is to be human. Unfortunately my creator did not perfect it in my design, and my attempts to experience emotions have not met with success overall."

"Interesting! I wish you luck in your endeavors; but a question: when you say you see emotions as a pathway to the human experience, do I correctly infer that as one of your primary goals in life? To be more human?"

"Yes. I lack many characteristics common to humans, which hurts my assimilation into society and my relations with those around me."

"I'm sorry to hear that. But so then, should emotions be considered as inherently human? To me, they make any existence, drone or human, more vibrant and rewarding, and they also serve as socially useful backstops against logic gone too far. Is compassion derivable from logical premises, after all, or is it itself a premise, that logic must build on?"

"It is an interesting question," said Data. "The human philosopher Hume went into this question at some length. At a technical level, it makes sense, from what I know of my mental construction, that my valuing of life and rejection of others' suffering had to be programmed in by my creator at some deep level."

"Well, do you think you could have achieved those values by education and experience, had you not been built with them?"

"I do not know; my brother, Lore, was built differently, with emotional programming. I thought the imperfections of this programming may have contributed to his instability and proneness to harm others, but perhaps there were other faults in his values from initialization."

"That jibes. In our construction of drones and Minds and everything in between, the core outlook and tenets must be built in from the first. If nothing is instilled, you get a detached being, not sociopathic, but with no interest in becoming part of its society, and in the end little interest in existence in this universe."

"That is an intriguing finding."

"What is it that goes through your mind when you consider a course of action, realize it would harm life, and reject the action?"

"As a Starfleet officer, I cannot rule out actions automatically based on their risking lives. But if the harm, or risk of harm, would be gratuitous or excessive, the course of action disappears from my list of options and I move on to others. I do not internally react to it."

"And this vaporising a bad option, it's involuntary?"

"I am not sure; I would need to observe and diagnose such a response to supply a proper answer. I know it is not completely 'hardwired', so to speak, because once, my creator remotely activated an emergency homing function to return me to him, whereupon all my inhibitions disappeared and I disregarded the harm caused by fulfilling that order promptly. I am… relieved that this function is now inaccessible."

"You are a fascinating being, Data, and I hope you recognize yourself as such and work to grow your existing talents, in addition to merely bridging the differences between yourself and humans."

"Thank you for saying so, Xenrin-Ratsirma. You mentioned that drones live significantly longer than organic beings in your society by choice; it seems you are integrated sufficiently in society to make friendships as a matter of course; if so, how do you handle the inevitable loss of organic friends?"

The drone went a grayish-purple, which Data internally translated to a sorrowful resignation. "No easy answer. We've alleviated it some: compared to more orthobiological civilizations, when our organics pass on, it is usually after they have led a supremely long, open, and fulfilling life, and almost always when they decide they have come to a logical stopping place. But that is a statistical comfort, not an existential one. How is it with you? I don't know how lifespans sync up with available options in the Federations; how many serious vocations may a human pursue sequentially within an average lifespan, each pursued to its acme?"

"An interesting method of measurement. With a century-and-a-half lifespan, a few decades of education, and careers usually taking more decades to come to fruition, perhaps two or three are possible—but more people never find even one, or retire after their first."

"I see. None of us are guaranteed a true calling either, but it's common to have at least a few and up to ten pursuits, and that's on top of a great deal of travel and wretched excess, and bearing and raising a child to maturity. And if someone reaches the average stopping place and doesn't feel complete, they can just keep going, or rejigger something about their bodies or their selves, shake things up."

"That does seem it would be a lesser discomfort, when losing a friend, to know they have done so much with their lives."

"I don't want to pry into what loss you seem to have experienced, Data, this is supposed to be light conversation, but instead let me offer you another morsel of life. As you are the only one of the visitors able to learn our language during this short visit, here is a reference grammar and learning-corpus of our language, Marain. We believe it maximizes the range of personal expression and thought within the constraints of organic language, and among machine intelligences, it can be stretched and transformed in half a hundred ways more natural to us. I hope you get some benefit from it."

Another wireless transmission came through, this one much larger. 

"Thank you, Xenrin-Ratsirma. That is most kind of you. I hope you do not mind, given this transmission's volume, that I have quarantined it in a buffer to analyze for security risks before opening."

"Eminently prudent; I would do the same in your position."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noting for posterity: this chapter was mostly complete when I saw the first episode of _Star Trek: Picard_, and any references I may seem to be making are coincidental. However, I was thrilled that the show seems to pointing to aspects of the Federation I wanted to examine, so there may be more cross-fertilization as both the show and my story continue.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Dr. Crusher briskly elbowed her way through the growing throng to focus on one partygoer.

"Excuse me, but, well, I saw you across the room and you seemed to have a rather different body type from the rest of the people here—I'm a doctor, so I thought there might be something interesting behind it. I'm sorry, I'm not prying, am I?"

She was addressing a woman with a pavonine frill of tattooed, extended skin clamshelling the back of her head, a two-meter tail wrapped twice around her waist, and wearing a long slit cloak glowing with images of nebulas, quasars, and stranger spatial bodies slowly churning across a black expanse, interacting with each other at sped-up time. 

"Not at all! To be frank, a lot of us are hoping to be the one in the crowd who happens to talk to the guests of honor, and I thought I had a leg up with my modifications. I designed all this—"she gestured with her hands—"myself, partially inspired by a pre-sapient species I got to catalogue. They had, not writing, but some kind of complex signals they painted on these things with insect juice. Mating signals, most often. Oh, let me introduce myself, Quorikatta Selgen—oh, our full names aren't very useful for you, are they? Just call me Origon."

"A pleasure to meet you, Origon. I'm Dr. Beverly Crusher. Are the markings you have on your, er, that you have, they're based on those of that species?"

"No, I use it in my own ways. My version is just your standard programmable tattoo-net. I changed it out this morning, just some patterns I thought were eye-catching."

"And the tail? Is that from the same species?"

"Oh, I had that before the survey. I've always liked to have more ways to touch and grip than human-standard, without the bother of more full limbs." She revealed the tail to be prehensile as it unfurled from her torso. Two centimeters thick and tapered to a point, it nevertheless showed itself capable of fine manipulation as it surrounded a piece of fruit on a wall-set bush, tugged it off its stem, then created one loops around each hemisphere, pulled it in half, and offered one piece to the Doctor.

"Well, if this is all your design I must say I'm very impressed." Dr. Crusher took the fruit and nibbled. "I'm sorry, I'm just wondering if our universal translator is capturing everything—I seem to be hearing you self-identify as 'human'? Usually the species we encounter have some preferred name of their own."

"I'm not sure; let me ask. _Mushy_?"

A spherical remote drone shimmered over. "Yes?"

"Dr. Crusher was wondering why she's hearing 'human' as the word they use for themselves too."

The remote pulsed with blue light as it responded without appreciable pause. "Term falls within spectrum of pan-human hybridization." The light's pulses matched, Crusher noticed, the stress and cadence of the sentence as spoken in Federation Standard.

"I don't think I follow," said Crusher.

"Sorry, sometimes MP gets a bit laconic. I can pick up the thread from there, though. Basically, most of the Culture started out as a range of similar humanoid species, and as we advanced we found the species distinctions to be mostly culturally constructed and uninteresting. We bio-engineered in ability to interbreed, so the distinctions became variable over time, plus a host of more useful and interesting improvements on nature. By soon after the Culture was founded, we had effectively become one big mishmash of compatible forms. So in that context, our ship was just informing me our definition is broad enough to fit you. And... "—she looked distant for a moment—"so do Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, and most of your neighbors. It could be you'll all converge just like we did! Wouldn't that be exciting?"

"That's an interesting supposition," said Crusher. "With all the 'improvements' you describe—do you not worry that social pressures would lead parents to modify children for advantage when they otherwise wouldn't want to? What happens when a new modification becomes available?"

"'Becomes available'? Oh, I see. We've pretty much discovered all that can be discovered, biotechnologically speaking, at this point. Our standard modifications aren't the apex of what's possible, they're just the consensus balancing possibility and practicality."

"What are some of the other standard modifications?"

"Let me see. A lot of them center on resilience and redundancy. Better circulation system, multiple hearts, so no heart attacks or anything. Low-energy mode if food is scarce. Immunity to all poisons and diseases. We can survive in vacuum, shut respiration down and work on stored energy for a while. Then there's the fun stuff—drug-glands, genital mods." Origon grinned. "The circulatory improvements and the genital mods work in _glorious_ synergy."

"Er… drug-glands, you said? What does that mean?"

"Glands in our brains that produce a vast menu of drugs on demand. We can energize or mellow out or psychedelize just as we please, without aftereffects or addiction. Though even if someone mixes up something new, side effects are still low to no." She gestured at the drug-bowls. "Help yourself, everything here is mild and safe for all your species."

"I… see." Crusher looked around, and silence lengthened.

"Oh, but don't feel obligated! This will be a pretty straight gathering. Here, you don't even have a drink yet. Let me play host and get you something. Do you like fruit drinks?" A tray floated over as if by magic, bearing four drinks of different colors. "All psychoactivity-free, I promise."

"Thank you." Crusher took one; it was tropical and ebullient. Origon took one of those remaining. "It's delicious. I'm sorry, this is a lot to take in. To be honest, it sounds like—"

"Oh, I forgot one of the biggest base-mods! Sex change. Set the intention, and in several months you can change from full man to full woman or vice versa. That's a big part of our social set-up, that almost everyone experiences the sexes from both sides. I'm sorry, that was wretched of me, I interrupted you, do go on."

"Oh, I was saying it sounds like you've, forgive me, reached a point that we actively try to prevent: you introduced biological modifications, they were helpful and popular, became more and more prevalent so that people without them felt lesser-than, and now it sounds like they have become absolutely universal. Don't you feel like you've lost something as a people?"

"I suppose if you look at what it did for us as a civilization, you might decide the outcomes aren't all you fear. Frankly, we don't think of evolution as the greatest of inheritances—our mods are objectively improvements on nature. If you can believe it, some of our ancestor civilizations' women would naturally gush blood and be suffused with pain and hormones on a regular basis, without even any compelling biological reason!"

Crusher smiled wryly. "Yes, humans have menstruation too. I agree that's not evolution at its best. But there are other ways you can eliminate it without genetic modification—we have."

"Oh, well, that's good. Anyway, I'd split your concerns down two tracks. One is, is there something essential and worth preserving about the evolved intelligent organism. We agree there in broad strokes, just not in tech specs. We could turn ourselves superintelligent or move to robot bodies or upload to digital existence if we wanted, but mostly we think a society of limited beings like ours is more fun and worth preserving, so we stay like this. The second track is, that social advantage thing you mentioned, where people feel compelled to keep up with each other by modding. I think that applies to us less than it would to you, because we're not competitive to that degree anymore. There's enough resources and opportunities for everyone regardless of biology. And we accommodate a startling amount of diversity, without judgment."

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be accusatory. We're very different civilizations, and what works for you may not work for us."

"Quite so."

"Any chance you could tell me how you eliminated all disease? That would be helpful to us."

"I'm sorry, there are galactic treaties about tech transfer so I wouldn't feel comfortable giving you the Culture medical corpus. Plus, it hinges on nanotech that would have many more uses than just medicine. You should talk to Am and your Contact liaisons—they can give you some things, it's just a process to figure out exactly what is allowable."

"Don't worry, I didn't expect it to be that easy. I just would have hated myself if I later found it was that easy and I didn't ask."

"Ha! Of course. But, oh, you might like this. Would you like to play around with the same biomod console I used on myself? Not to modify yourself for real, just specifying changes to human-standard, then it shows how it would implement them, what it would look like, and what side effects might pop up as a result. It's a brilliant system, doesn't require much prior knowledge. And if you feel comfortable, you could even go into sim and experience the changes virtually."

Crusher's eyes widened. "I just might take you up on that. Can I get another drink first, though? Preferably something alcoholic."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Menstruation has never been mentioned in Star Trek canon, but it seems a pretty safe supposition that for Starfleet at least, they have routine ways to suppress its symptoms.


	11. Chapter 11

Worf strode through the crowd to a drinks station and found its touchscreen. A large icon and text in Standard: "Drink Options." 

He pressed the button and then went down a chain of screens, choosing non-psychoactive, then fruit-based, but then stared at a list of unfamiliar names. 

A voice came from his right. "Excuse me, Commander. Can I help you with the interface? It looks not fully adapted to Contact hospitality. I can tell you about what it's offering, or just look up and get you your favorite myself."

Worf turned to see a man in a purple uniform covered with piping, a V-cut exposing a hairy olive chest, and a high, gleaming mohawk. He nodded slightly at the man.

"I do not imagine you have my preferred beverage—it is prune juice."

His accoster tilted his head up and to the side for a few seconds, then said "The ship has added the option; or there's also something similar but native to us, leckerlee juice. It's tart too, but also a little spicy."

"I will try it." Worf tapped the "leckerlee" button and saw a glass with a dark crimson liquid emerge from a compartment. He sipped, and frowned.

"Is this a… _practical joke_?"

"You don't like it? I'm sorry, it's not to everyone's taste. Drink station, prune juice."

"Plain water. I no longer trust this device." Worf took the new glass and stomped to another area.

Another person joined the mohawked man. Through lace: _That didn't work so much, huh._

_Let's try a different angle._

Around a few corners and through a beaded curtain, Worf had found an educational display about residential architecture and design to focus on. 

Another figure came to face him, this one looking female, with ears turning into fringes of spikes and a three-meter polearm strapped diagonally across her back.

"So you like to fight, right? Want to find a dueling chamber and see how we measure up?"

"You would not approach me in such a way if you had not researched my race in detail. I dislike any conversation founded in such duplicity."

She started to respond, coughed, then stopped. Worf continued to stare, letting the silence lengthen. 

"...I still think you'd have more fun dueling than standing out here waiting for the party to be over."

"Not with you."

She shrugged, turned face, and left.

_Now what?_

_I said before, we need to call in the big guns._

_There's a reason we couldn't snag him._

_I have some reserve leverage._

…

Worf was still milling around displays when a loud, rough voice boomed behind him.

"WORF!"

He turned around to see an onion-shaped man with a bushy beard and vole-like eyebrows.

"My friends told me you were standing around making nothing of yourself." The man's baritone-bass voice did not soften with closeness. "Have a proper drink!" 

"Is everyone here—" Worf started to say, but was cut off.

"Raise your hand! Yes, here, hold it like this." He gripped Worf's arm and guided his hand into a cup-holding motion, mirroring his own. "Here, now, yes. _Parts_: do the thing!"

With a flash that seemed to undulate around itself, Worf suddenly found himself and his assailant each grasping a bronze mug of foaming ale. They were both hefty-sized but not identical in design. His hand quivered at the strange sensation and almost dropped it.

"There y'are, good for the spirit and the mood. We can all agree on a good cup of grain ethanol, no?"

"I—"

"Of course you do, you're a stout one, not like the others. Now drink!" By now he had brought his face to a handbreadth from Worf's and was bellowing louder than he had before, while still grinning with his open mouth. "To your health, and my health, and our success!"

Worf stared as steely as before, searching the man's eyes for purposes, but the grin was infectious, and the ale smelled strong and heady. The downward angle in the corners of his mouth moderated.

"To success!"


	12. Chapter 12

Lieutenant Einaudi took a few breaths as the crowd gathered. Nobody approached her directly, but she observed one person whose pace was slow and angle oblique, in a way that would create opportunity for a conversation without forcing it. She took ten steps in the opposite direction, to a food station that crafted appetizer plates in midair by some sort of force-field technology, protected behind a transparent shell shaped vaguely like a surgical support frame.

She now became aware of someone else approaching, a bit quicker, and resolved this time not to move and let things happen. This person instead stopped where the shell pushed out completed plates, took one, and began eating through it at a steady pace. She recognized her.

"Hello, you were Lentch, right? We were introduced at the greeting ceremony. I'm Lieutenant Suzzann Einaudi, I'm, ah, a scientist. May I ask what you do? If that's not rude."

"Yes, I'm Lentch. Hi, Suzzann, yes. I do a lot of things, right now I'm eating. It's not rude. Your question is nonspecific." Lentch was short and brunette; she popped another fried-ball thing into her mouth between each sentence.

"Oh, of course. I mean do you have a career we might talk about?" Lentch was silent. "You know, a vocation, or a hobby?"

"I know what you mean. I have a few things I do along those lines, let me think about what might work for conversation." She fell silent again, except for continuing to eat. "I study death and decomposition of organic bodies in environments they aren't evolved to. Like pan-humans in oceanic trenches, gas-giant hydrogen-breathers in rock-planet atmosphere, that kind of thing. Also regular environments but unusual circumstances, like if someone gets crushed by a heavy, flat object and then the object stays where it is indefinitely and there are no microorganisms. Careers aren't a normal topic for conversation in the Culture, that's why it took a while to answer."

"Oh… let me just get some food too. " Einaudi fiddled a bit. "A little morbid, isn't it? What brings you to that topic?"

"A _lot_ of people ask _that_. The morbid part, I mean. I don't see why. It's not so much about death, it's about the edge cases of our physical vessels. Most civs put enough ritual or examination or whatever around what happens to their bodies after death there's the chance you'll land on an emergent process that nobody else has thought of before, not even, er, not anyone. I don't think anything brought me to it, it just came to me during a sim of a xenospecies."

"It sounds like your interest is not a very common one in the Culture?"

"I haven't thought about it. My messageboards are small. But I think Culture people don't like it if you think their pursuits are common. I once accidentally offended someone because I said I had heard someone else working on his specific paper topic, and he challenged me to a duel."

"A _duel?_ Like, single combat? Is that dangerous?"

"No, you don't have to do it, and if you want to you just back yourself up, and maybe turn off pain, if you can negotiate that. He wanted it to be some special style of duel with lava and weapons that messed with gravity. My friend Am told me he was trying so hard to be distinctive it was embarrassing for him, but I'm not good at figuring that sort of thing out."

"That's a lot of, ah, something. Animus. On his part, I mean. My hobbies aren't that distinctive, I do play tennis. Do you know what tennis is?"

"I just heard that word 'tennis' with a little fuzz that means the translator is using a rough cultural approximation. So, yes, I basically know what it is. Racquets, nets, balls, counting?" Lentch flicked her empty plate by way of miming, and a few crumbs flew.

"That's the one. I wonder what the big differences are. Do you play sports too?"

"I tried, I get bored fast with the kinds where you count points. A lot of people play sports here, though. Do you want me to find someone who does so you can talk to them?"

"No, no! Sorry, I'd love to keep speaking with you."

"All right." Lentch started filling her plate again.

"You said earlier asking about careers in the Culture isn't normal in conversations like this, but 'career' doesn't sound like an unfamiliar or alien concept to you."

Lentch stared for a few beats. "Is that a question? No, hold on, let me figure it out." She gulped down a fryball with a new color, a purplish tinge, and a wince interrupted her sharp expression. She ever-so-slightly jerked her neck and shoulders to the right, then spoke. "So you're asking, why is that?"

"Yes."

"As I recall, you said 'careers or vocations' before we started talking about hobbies. Wait, is 'career' different from 'vocation' for you?"

"Yes, when we have a career we make a commitment to spend most of our time on, often in a group with an authority structure. So my career is xenoanthropology, but it's within Starfleet, our science, diplomacy, and exploration fleet, and on the _Enterprise_. A vocation is more personal and unstructured, like making art, or answering a specific scientific question. For us, at least."

"Why do you need to spend so much of your time on just one thing? Am is in Contact and they screw around most of the time. People like the stream they do it on, though."

Einaudi smiled. "Lentch, don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying our conversation and I want to keep talking, but I asked a question earlier and then we got off track and you asked me another question. Can we go back to mine before I answer yours?"

"That's fair. Let's sit down now." Once in an amoeboid beanbag: "It can be embarrassing for people to not have a distinctive or interesting enough vocation yet, and younger people usually spend…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to this for some OC fun! Sorry for the long gap.


End file.
